The Bottom Billion with Paul Collier

                                         THE BOTTOM BILLION
                                    with Professor Paul Collier 

                                       Wednesday May 23rd
                                               5:45pm
                          Brunei Gallery Lecture Theatre, SOAS

Professor Paul Collier, a leading authority on global poverty, will speak on his new book, The Bottom Billion.  Global poverty, Paul Collier points out, is actually falling quite rapdior about eighty percent of the world.  The real crisis lies in a group of about 50 failing states, the bottom billion, whose problems defy traditional approaches to alleviating poverty.

 The book shines a much needed light on this group of small nations, largely unnoticed by the industrialised West, that are dropping further and further behind the majority of the world’s people.  Collier analyses the causes of failure, and offers real hope for solving one of the great humanitarian crises facing the world today.  

Paul Collier is former director of research at the World Bank and current Director of the Centre for the Study of African Economies at Oxford University. 

Followed by a reception